Cupid, Briefly Noted

What do cupid and kids have in common? Undies! Yep, that’s right. It’s hard to believe that the Children’s Tumor Foundation would associate its name with men in skivvies and women in lace — even for a million dollars.

Yet, the Children’s Tumor Foundation partners every year with the Cupids Undies “fun” run. In Washington, D.C., this one-mile dash around the Capitol is apparently the event to be seen at, and it sells out every year.

The Cupids Undies Run national website says that while the run benefits kids, they hope they aren’t watching. If that statement has to be on your website, surely you should reconsider the activity you are promoting.

Even more disturbing is that the run begins and ends at a bar. The race organizers can’t possibly ignore how tawdry this appears.

It’s a bar crawl … in undies … for charity.

Whether they are naughty or nice, the result is the same — unmentionables for charity. But in our highly sexualized culture, I guess this “run” would be considered tame?

Learning about neurofibromatosis (NF) broke my heart. Diseases that impact children, especially ones with no cures, are devastating to all of us. As a mother, I could not imagine the frustration of seeing my child suffer helplessly. Let’s be clear: Children with NF truly are heroes. And I hope and pray a cure is around the corner!

Faced with the nature of NF, it is understandable that fundraisers want a lighthearted event that will raise oodles of money to help these kids and their families. However, alcohol and near nudity is, more often than not, a recipe for making kids, rather than raising money for them. Cupid’s Undies Run Founder Brendan Hanrahan should be reminded that, as our mothers always said, “Appearances still matter.”